Long before our move to Italy, we had planned a trip to Rocca di Neto for April of 2026. I turned 50 in February and wanted to go to Italy to see where my father grew up and connect with my relatives. At the time, I was even hoping my father would be able to come too.
My father hadn’t been back to Italy in about 20 years. For his 70th birthday, my brother Mario and I helped him renew his green card so he could get his passport and travel again. This April would have been the perfect time.
Running in the background of all of this since 2018 was my effort to obtain Italian citizenship.
I had worked with a lawyer for a few years who suggested that the fastest path might be to move to Italy temporarily and apply from here. At the time, that didn’t feel realistic. We had kids still in school and jobs that wouldn’t allow for that kind of move. Who has the luxury of just packing up and heading to Italy “for a while”?
So I gathered all the paperwork and began the process through the Italian consulate in the United States. Because we live in Connecticut, that meant going through the New York City consulate. The wait time for an appointment there is several years long. After years of gathering and translating the correct documents, I added my name to the list in June of 2022 and still haven’t received an appointment.
Then last year, everything shifted in ways we couldn’t imagine.
I unexpectedly retired. Not long after, my father passed away in August. The months surrounding that were a whirlwind of family chaos and change. Daren was still working full time, but we started talking about what we really wanted next.
We both wanted to keep working—but in a way that allowed for more flexibility, less stress, and more control over our time.
And suddenly, moving to Italy for a year didn’t feel unrealistic anymore. It felt right.
After my father passed, the three of us—his children—made the decision that Pops would still go to Rocca in April. We cleared it with the family in Italy, who thought it was a great idea. This week, we carried that plan out.
Before moving to Italy, we had even considered settling in Calabria to be closer to family. We visited the area last October. I had met many of my relatives before in the United States when they visited.
When we arrived last fall, we were welcomed at the small airport in Crotone by my uncle and two aunts. The airport is so small they were practically at the gate. Even though it had been many years since we had seen one another, we all recognized each other right away.
And then came the welcome.
It was like the movies—one long table, full of food, constant conversation, introductions, laughter. We spent a few days with them, fully immersed in it all.
For me, it truly felt like home.
I lost my mom when she was 49, and my dad last summer. For the past 15 years or so, my father didn’t really have a place of his own, so “going home” meant going to newer places that were fine, but didn’t have a deep connection to me.
But in Italy—even having not been there since I was very little—it felt familiar.
My relatives’ homes were decorated the same way my parents decorated. The same types of frames, candy dishes, the same overall feel and aesthetic.
My uncle Joe and his wife even had the same dishes my parents had. My aunt said it was because she and my mom bought them at the same time.
My aunt Sarah’s food tastes just like my mom’s did. It’s uncanny—especially the rabbit sauce. When I told her this, she said it was because her mom (my grandmother, and my mom’s mother-in-law) taught them both how to make it.
We don’t know each other well, but my cousins—especially the men—have the same mannerisms as my father and brothers. The same humor, the same playful energy. They laugh and carry on with the same joy we had when my father was alive.
The language barrier was there, but it was also strangely fun to navigate. We made it work.
When we visited last fall, we seriously considered moving closer to them.
There are real benefits. It’s much easier to practice Italian when people are patient and willing to wait while you find the words or look them up. Learning feels more natural that way.
But Calabria is far south and not close to major international travel routes. With four adult children and family back home, we felt more at ease staying connected and accessible. Being that far away made us feel just a little too vulnerable.
And even though we didn’t move here, we are driving away, having carried out the plan to bring Pops back to his hometown on Rocca.
Thursday we packed into few cars and made the short trip up the road to local town cemetery where the family has a mausoleum. We placed my father’s ashes amongst the other relatives that have passed alongside his parents (my grandparents).
My brother Frankie and his partner Mary were with us this time, and Daren and I took immense joy in seeing how quickly they were welcomed and made to feel at home—that they were with family.
It was special to see the experience we had before through their eyes, and to be back in it ourselves—this time understanding just a little bit more of the rhythm and the sounds around us.
Calabria feels like home. Not because I had been there before—but because so much of it already lived in me. The way people gather, the way meals are shared, the way homes are filled with the same small details I grew up with.
It made me realize that home isn’t always a place you return to. Sometimes it’s something that travels quietly through generations—carried in traditions, in mannerisms, in the way people connect with each other.
Being with people I barely know, in a place I had never lived, somehow—and truly—feels like home. It All Clicks.
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A week or so ago, I was on an email string with an amazing group of women back home who meet semi-often—sometimes with a question or a theme to contemplate so we can keep the conversation flowing, expand our minds, and get to know one another on a deeper level. One of the women who will be hosting soon asked the group to bring their favorite childhood recipe.
I can’t attend (you know, being in Italy and all), but I did consider contributing to the conversation from afar with my own favorite childhood recipe. Two came to mind, and if I had responded, the other likely would have won out—but this week, Beef Stew is what I would choose today.
Let me backtrack to Thursday.
I woke up as happy as I have been almost every day since we arrived in Italy. It had been nearly four weeks.
One of my less healthy habits is checking my phone first thing in the morning. Thursday, there was a routine email from our realtor—but something about it didn’t feel routine after everything that had happened with renting our home in Connecticut. For some reason, it set me off. It felt jarring. My body reacted instantly, and I could feel myself mentally spiraling.
I tried to sit and meditate, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t focus on anything useful. My mind was off to the races, my throat tight.
At the same time, I realized we had planned to bring the dog to the vet, and a plumber was supposed to be coming. Daren was out walking the dog and had been gone for a while—with no phone. I started to worry: What if he forgot about the vet? What if he didn’t realize the overlap with the plumber? (I barely realized it myself since we hadn’t scheduled it—the landlord had casually mentioned it, which somehow made it feel even more chaotic.)
Then my mind went further—visions of the dog chasing a wild boar (which is actually a thing here), or Daren falling somewhere in the woods with no way to call because he left his phone at home.
Yeah, as I write this it sounds ridiculous, but it was where my mind was at the time, when suddenly, everything felt like too much all at once and I felt like I was coming undone.
Nothing is actually new or different just because we’re in Italy. The same patterns of panic and spiraling—triggered by big or small things—are still here. But underneath it all, I realized that morning that I was really missing home.
The first few weeks here were busy—setting up the house, figuring things out, getting settled. But now that things are quieter, the absence is louder. I realized I miss my friends. I miss seeing people. I miss having conversations that aren’t just between my husband and me.I haven’t had any real time to myself. I haven’t watched a show. I haven’t done anything creative. At home, I had built-in space for that—my weekly craft group, walks with friends, book talks, dinners or coffee with girlfriends, meeting up with other couples. Just going outside into the garden and getting my hands in the dirt. Connecting with people as I got mail from the mailbox. Those things grounded me. They gave me connection and a sense of rhythm. That morning I felt lonely.
Don’t get me wrong—I LOVE what we are doing. I love shaking things up. But in that moment of panic, I was craving the ability to kvetch with friends, take a long hot bath, and prepare something that feels like home.
I have been anxious most of my life. It wasn’t until 10 years ago [this month actually] that I even realized it, and that awareness only came because it escalated into panic attacks. Ten years later—after experimenting with medication and lifestyle changes—I’ve never been more in touch with myself or more content. But anxiety still exists.
When I get anxious to the level I did on Thursday morning, I start to fear there’s something wrong with me. I worry that I’ll never be happy. I mean—how can I be in Italy, in this beautiful place, and feel anxious? It must be me. I must be the problem.
But it’s not me. It’s life.
This is life. It’s a fluctuating feeling that will pass. An old blog on this topic: On The Fluctuating Gunas.
It’s not about where you are physically, or where you are in life. Trying to change the world around me so I feel less anxious isn’t the solution—it’s not sustainable, and quite frankly, it would be exhausting. The only sustainable solution is learning how to live with what comes up in a way that isn’t harmful, and sitting through the discomfort knowing it will pass.
I had to figuratively slap myself out of feeling like a failure—or fearing writing about this because someone who knows me might feel disappointed that every moment in a new country with a beautiful view isn’t bliss. I want to wear my heart on my sleeve and let the world know that I love my life—but I’m human. And human emotions don’t disappear just because we change our circumstances.
When I see other people being human, it gives me permission to be human too. I want to offer that same permission.
Daren got home safe. No wild boars attacked Koji, and Daren was standing upright. The plumber came early. We made it to the vet and communicated in a bumbling but ultimately successful way with our broken Italian.
I couldn’t help but think of something I’ve said just recently to a friend (and can never remember when I need it): most of what we worry about never actually happens.
Everything was fine—but the emotional flooding lingered. I still didn’t feel right.
By about halfway through the day—after the vet, some rest, petting the dog, and a fair amount of complaining—I found myself craving comfort. Food, scent, shelter. It was a windy, rainy day—the perfect setting for comfort food.
I pulled out a piece of beef I had bought earlier in the week, intending to make beef stew at some point (thanks to my friend’s prompt about childhood recipes). The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
As I started browning the beef and the scent rose from the pot, I felt my stress begin to melt away. I chopped carrots, onions and celery, remembering how I used to feel as a kid when those same smells filled the kitchen while my mother cooked. We didn’t have beef stew often, but when we did, it was usually on a cold, unpleasant day—when the warmth and smell inside felt like a protective, loving blanket.
With each ingredient I added, I felt better. By the time everything was in the pot and simmering, I felt lighter—like the heaviness was leaving my body.
Chocolate felt necessary too. I converted an American brownie recipe into the European measurements and pans we had, and made a tray of warm, gooey brownies to go with it.
As everything cooked, I felt so much better that I was able to sit down with Daren and talk through one of our consulting projects. I even went upstairs, wrapped myself in my weighted blanket (another reliable stress reliever), and got some focused work done.
Later, one of the kids called and really needed to talk. By that point, I felt clear again—steady, present. I closed my computer and was able to give my full attention to the conversation.
Somewhere in there, I had pulled myself back together. Not perfectly, not magically, not with grace! – but enough. And it felt really good.
Later, we sat down to eat the stew and brownies, which turned out amazing—and were exactly what I needed.
Nothing had been fixed. It had just been felt… and it passed. Sometimes that’s all it is. You sit with it… and let something warm simmer until you come back to yourself.
A thank you to my friend who knows who she is. I’m calling this Beef Stew.
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I know if I don’t capture the feelings now, I still might be able to later — but they will never feel as they do now.
Today. My last day of work. That elevator — the sound made me want to cry.
A hot day, not too different from today. 23 years ago.
5th Floor, Building 2 — right outside my door was the elevator bank. Mary Susie Conti — the woman I was replacing — was loading up my head with all that I needed to learn.
I was paying rapt attention, but every so often I sussed out the environment. It felt so different to be in an office in the middle of the day instead of home with my two small children, who were now 45 minutes away in a new daycare. Every time I thought of them, my heart hurt just a bit, and I had to intentionally put it out of my mind.
The feel of the air with the open window (at a time when we were allowed to open windows — now I can’t imagine), the humidity in the office, and the sound of the elevator’s electronic voice blathering all day:
“Fifth Floor Going Down… Fifth Floor Going Up.”
Over the next few days and weeks, I slightly startled the 50 or so times a day I heard that electronic voice announcing the floor it landed on and which direction it was going.
Eventually, it became background noise and I didn’t hear it at all. But when I did tune in, no matter the day or time of year, I was transported back to being 26 years old and learning my new job from Mary Susie Conti.
For the past 8+ years, I haven’t come into the office much. I was on a reasonable accommodation and working from home long before COVID. But I have to say — it always felt like home when I did go in.
I honestly believe one of the reasons I got the job is because of that “home”-like feeling.
When I interviewed for that first job, I went through a series of interviews back to back. Martha Shea was the first person who interviewed me.
Right off the bat, she made it known that if I didn’t pass her muster, the two doctors I would soon interview with would take her consideration into account.
She also made sure to tell me she was prior military and instantly started off by asking about my own military experience.
I was slightly intimidated, but something about her already felt familiar. She was my kind of people — I could tell.
I don’t even know how I wasn’t prepared for the question: “Why do you want to work here?”
I mean — for heaven’s sake — if a person can’t answer that, they shouldn’t get the job!
Martha asked me that question and my truly unprepared, but terribly raw response — when I looked around — was:
“Because it feels like home.”
Martha cracked a genuine smile and asked me why.
I looked around, asking myself the same thing to understand why I had that feeling.
I saw the government-issued 3-month calendar, where you save paper with the months on both sides. The chairs. The carpet. The signage. The halls. The overhead pages. Men with military regalia ambling down the hall. The feeling I always got crossing from a state line onto federal property.
So that is what I said. I first pointed to the calendar on the wall, then the chairs. I mentioned something that was broken in a corner and talked about how it all felt familiar.
I didn’t think about puffing everyone up with “helping veterans,” giving back, stories of grandfathers who fought in wars — or all the other things I subsequently heard over the years when I eventually became the interviewer.
My answer was candid and from the heart.
If my interview were a cartoon, Martha would have started off in a knight’s costume — complete with armor — to intimidate me. Then it would have fallen off, and you would have seen her heart literally melting.
She proudly walked me down the hall to the person who would eventually become my first supervisor at the VA.
With a hand on my shoulder, she introduced me in a way that made it clear she liked me and wanted to take me under her wing.
I already felt protected — and that I was with my people.
Today, I drove into for the last time.
The sunrise down the street from me. A new dawn to a brand new type of day for me.
I saw people parking, taking out their bags and lunches, putting on badges. These people were donned in suits, scrubs, lab coats — and everything in between.
I vividly remembered those early days of parking in that same lot. The uniforms, cars and smells were so unfamiliar at the time. Now they are all second nature. All these years I have been taking the same steps into the same building and heading to the elevators —
“1st Floor, going up.”
Today, I ran into one of my coworkers walking into the building.
We got on the elevator together, and I heard that same electronic voice, unchanged in all these years.
I asked him about his two young girls. He filled me in and then asked how old my children were now.
28 and 26. My youngest is now as old as I was when I first started working there.
I worked there for their entire lives. In some ways, I missed their lives because of that place.
I don’t know who I am without it.
Some people would say I worked there a lifetime (23 years).
Others, who have 40, 45 years in the government, would still consider me a newbie.
It’s all relative. But for me — between the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs — it’s been my whole life.
I had jobs in different buildings and offices. Not too many were close to an elevator bank.
Today, as I left, it was:
“7th Floor, going down.”
It felt like:
“Esterina, now going down and out — into the wider world.”
I sat in the parking lot for a long time. I read the cards I was given, sitting in my car with the air conditioning blasting.
I felt nostalgic — but very excited.
Driving away was the hardest part. No tears, but a large lump in my throat.
A piece of my heart will always be there — in those buildings, carpets, walls, files.
And just like that — “7th Floor Going Down” — one chapter closes, and another begins.
I’m on a tear about technology today. It started this morning at work when I was asked to make two calendars from one our workgroup has on SharePoint. Simple enough, right? Make a new calendar, move what’s needed, and delete it from the old.
But no. It’s not that simple.
Without going into all kinds of boring details, there’s no longer a clear button to create a new calendar (which, by the way, used to be hidden—and knowing how to find that one was a feat in itself).
Now there are new apps that don’t even have names a normal human would recognize. After spending far too long searching, I found a “calendar-looking” app. I clicked on it and was asked to request access. Then I was given a link to check the status of my request.
About ten minutes later, I got an email from IT about my request. The app wasn’t approved yet—but I received another link to a help page for finding apps. That’s where I learned there’s a link to the “Classics.”
The classics are documents, calendars, announcements, group chats…
The classics? You mean what real, living, breathing employees actually use? Am I that old?
I just can’t with this stuff.
I thought I had finally learned how to use my “smart” TV. I know what the remotes do, how to add and delete apps, subscribe to channels—things my older family members still struggle with. Maybe my kids have it figured out, but I’m not so sure.
Then I went to watch a few holiday movies I had purchased. Turns out Fandango, where I bought them, had been sold. I spent about an hour trying to find my account, reset passwords, and locate my “purchased content.”
I never found it.
We just ended up watching what was free.
What was so wrong with owning something you could hold in your hand and keep in your cabinet? I still don’t know what happened to the movies I paid for.
My car is a 2017 Prius. It has a touchscreen and built-in navigation that never seems to work. Or when it does, I can’t figure out how to turn it off. I’ve tried every button, every option—there is no “End Route” or anything like it.
Sometimes Siri works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
I probably don’t know 80% of what my car can do. And this car is already years old. I don’t even want to think about what newer models can do that I’d never figure out.
Every time I get into my husband’s Tesla, I can’t even find the button I need because updates have moved everything around.
I look around and I don’t see many people using all these features with ease.
And when I do figure something out—it stops working.
I programmed Alexa with a morning routine, but the news app kept cutting out halfway through. It worked for a few days, then stopped. I changed the news source—same thing.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to play a song or album I know I purchased, only to find it gone from iTunes.
Family Share barely works. Apps don’t transfer. Music doesn’t show up. I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to make it work.
What is it even for?
We had a smart oven for a short time. The buttons were so sensitive that brushing it with your sleeve could turn it off. One of our cats walked across it and turned it on.
There was a lock feature—but then the “smart” features didn’t work.
I still don’t know why we bought a smart oven.
Same with our smart lights. They constantly unlink from the system. When you just want to turn on a light and forget the programming, they blink uncontrollably.
At that point, your options are:
sit in the dark
or pull out your phone and spend 5–10 minutes fixing it
We also have a Wi-Fi-enabled dryer. I have no idea how to use that feature—or why I would.
At work, I’ve seen hundreds of really useful tools built over the years—things that genuinely made life easier. But most of them have broken over time due to updates, moved systems, or lost knowledge when someone left.
I spend more time trying to fix what used to work than creating anything new.
Even here—on WordPress, where I’m writing this—I feel the same way. Every time I log in, something has moved or changed names. I’ve been using this platform since 2015, and all I really know how to do is write a post.
I know it can do so much more—but every time I try to learn, I hit a wall and give up.
This just isn’t cool.
This is a colossal waste of time.
The world is getting too complicated, and regular people can’t—and don’t want to—keep up with the constant changes forced on us.
Can we just… slow down?
Competition drives faster and faster innovation—but for what?
Just because we can create something doesn’t mean we should.
It reminds me of the industrial revolution. We figured out how to produce more and more, faster and faster. Then we created marketing to convince people they needed it all.
Now we work more to afford things we never needed in the first place.
Life didn’t necessarily get better because our homes got bigger and our possessions multiplied.
Maybe we need to pause.
Technology for consumers isn’t working as well as we think. People haven’t caught up—and honestly, the products haven’t either.
I wish the tech world would stop creating new things for a while and focus on making what already exists actually work.
I know humans thrive on innovation. Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
But right now, it feels like we skipped right past cars and are handing people spaceships they don’t know how to fly.
Honestly—if I’m someone with a master’s degree, living in a first-world country, and still struggling to keep up…
Who exactly are we building all this technology for?
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Flashback to March 4, 1997—North Shore University Hospital in Long Island.
I wake up (or think I do) in a recovery ward. Everything is a blur. Voices are talking around me—about something… me? There is one voice I recognize.
“Mag her.”
Mag her?
I realize the “her” is me. The voice is Dr. Seaman, my OB/GYN.
As my mind slowly clears, I remember: I had a scheduled cesarean section. I was conscious during the procedure, my then-husband by my side, as our firstborn son Thomas—breech—was brought into the world.
More than 22 years later, I still don’t know how aware I truly was in those moments. What I do remember is my blood pressure spiking and being in the high-risk maternity ward, hearing that phrase—“Mag her.”
The “mag” was magnesium. To this day, I don’t know why. But I do remember what was on the TV.
Days of Our Lives.
Kristin DiMera had just had a baby too.
In my foggy state, I was oddly captivated. I wanted to see my son. I remember a brief moment of him on my chest, flashes of a camera, and then he was gone. I was in pain. And the show became a strange, steady distraction.
A week or so later, home with a newborn, exhausted and in pain, the TV was on again. The same characters. The same storyline.
My husband went to change the channel, but I stopped him.
I wanted to see what happened next.
And that’s where it began—my quiet, unexpected relationship with Days of Our Lives.
Over the years, it stayed with me.
When Thomas was little, I’d watch on days off while working as a cook in the Coast Guard. Later, as a military wife and reservist, I’d put both kids down for naps, make popcorn, pour a Diet Coke over ice, and settle in.
In 2002, when I started working full time, I moved to VCR tapes. Later, DVR. Now, streaming. The format changed, but the habit remained.
Sometimes I watched daily. Sometimes weeks went by. But it was always there when I needed it.
The characters became familiar—almost like extended family.
The Hortons, Bradys, DiMeras.
The town square, the Brady Pub, the traditions, the chaos. The comfort.
Yes, there were the ridiculous storylines—possession, comas, people returning from the dead. But woven in were real things: loss, addiction, depression, relationships, identity.
And strangely, it helped.
At different points in my life, the show mirrored something I was going through.
When Jack and Jennifer were getting divorced, I was too. I remember feeling like a failure. Then one night, I turned on an episode and saw their storyline unfolding the same way. It felt… oddly comforting.
Years later, after a difficult stretch with my own mental health, I returned to the show to find a character struggling in a similar way. Again, it helped.
When addiction, illness, or loss showed up on screen, I didn’t feel so alone in my own experiences.
It’s easy to dismiss soaps as melodramatic—and they are. That’s part of their charm.
But beneath that, there’s something else.
They tell stories about being human—messy, imperfect, resilient.
And sometimes, seeing that reflected back—even in a fictional town like Salem—can be grounding.
A few days ago, the show jumped ahead by a full year. Curious, I looked it up and learned there’s uncertainty about its future.
It made me pause.
Because while the show has changed over the years—and so have I—it has been a quiet thread through so many seasons of my life.
I don’t watch it the same way anymore.
But I still understand what it gave me.
Familiarity. Distraction. Comfort. Perspective.
Like sands through the hourglass… so are the days of our lives.
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There are some experiences in life that seem almost magical or otherworldly as they happen. Sometimes it is when you meet someone and you get a sense of déjà vu or a flash of unexplained feelings. Or when you hear or read something that just seems to strike some sort of chord within you about its unexplainable truth.
One of the dozen or so times this happened to me is when I had first read that the soul is the connection to the divine (God, nature, or whatever you choose to call all that is). I was so moved by this simple statement. The truth of it was so obvious to me in that moment that it sparked one of those otherworldly flash feelings. The article discussed how the soul doesn’t dish out advice like our loud, animal, thinking brains do. But if you quiet the monkey mind and ask your soul for guidance, the right answer is always there waiting to be heard.
Wow. Yes.
I knew that somewhere but didn’t realize it until then. A few hours later, after mulling it over, I posted something on Facebook about it—a short quote I made up as my own interpretation of this. It had very few “likes.” Guess my Facebook tribe didn’t get it.
Not long after, I heard a podcast about the moral compass. The speaker explained how we experience negative emotions (depression, hopelessness, anxiety, etc.) when we aren’t living according to our moral compass.
Right—that makes sense too. And in my own interpretation, I understood that moral compass connection to be through the soul, which is connected to all that is. When we can’t hear or follow that sound advice and live against it, we feel unhappy.
Then, not long after, I started to better understand the deeper meaning of the yoga I was attracted to. The focused attention of breath and movement quieted the monkey mind. Meditation and quieting the mind became a way to really hear that inner guidance—something that, without question, always knows the right and loving way to be in this world.
I felt so inspired to write this morning because when I opened my email, something caught my eye strongly enough for me to open it. It spoke about the idea that love is not something we earn, but something that exists as our foundation—and that it is from that place that real change happens.
The message brought the idea of the soul and moral compass home for me. It reflected on the idea that we are created in the likeness of the divine (or nature, or whatever we connect to spiritually), and that likeness is love.
The takeaway, as I understood it, is that when we are not living from a place of love, we are out of alignment with who we truly are. And when we are living with love, we are acting in accordance with our deepest truth.
Love… Love it. To me that says it all.
Maybe, just maybe… the allegory of the apple and the suffering that followed was about losing trust in that love. Not listening to the soul. Not having faith in what is.
The soul knows. Perhaps we should listen a bit closer. It’s always there—the quiet, steady voice. Not the loud one demanding attention, but the softer one that doesn’t need to shout to be true.
Maybe listening to it really is a step away from fear and suffering.
Hey… it’s worth a try!
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In the yoga classes I’ve taught this past week, the theme I have been focusing on is “The Harvest.” The chosen reason is the time of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere, especially where we live in New England. The purpose of this theme, however, is not about the crops we need to harvest before the first frost (which was last night), but all “seeds” and “harvests” for the future.
Not sure what it has to do with yoga? If you are still with me, please allow me to explain.
A seed is just a seed all by itself. A lettuce seed alone has nothing but the potential to become lettuce. If I plant lettuce seeds in the ground in the month of April (appropriate for our Connecticut hardiness zone), there is a decent chance it will grow lettuce. But if I plant a cucumber seed in April, it will absolutely not grow into lettuce, and there is a slim chance it will grow at all. Cucumber seeds can only thrive after the last frost. Hence, it would be best to plant them in mid-May for any hope of having a cucumber in August.
So far I have a seed, dirt, and weather that will hypothetically allow me to harvest cucumbers. Seeds, dirt, and weather are not that insanely different from the potential we have as humans to manifest goals or create the type of life we desire. In churches and other spiritual communities and texts, we will often hear the phrase “As above, so below.”
What does that mean? It means the physical world is not all that different from the mental and spiritual worlds. Even though we can’t see those other worlds, the laws of nature are consistent.
Like seeds, our thoughts are just thoughts alone. The properties of a thought will only bring forth that thought. If I’d like to lose 10 pounds, it’s only a thought or wish until I do something with it. Additionally, wishing it will not yield me a promotion or the improvement of a relationship that I’d like to enhance… obviously. With me so far?
Next, that thought is planted or “sown” in my mind. The mind is not so dissimilar to the soil that we plant our seeds in. The thought that I would like to lose 10 lbs in a mind racing with anxiety, wrought with depression, or full of a stressed-out “to do” list will only go into an abyss of other competing and negative thoughts. Similar to how planting a cucumber seed in sand, in the snow, or even in April—the mind’s condition would not be right to help a positive thought manifest into the raw potential it has.
This is where yoga comes in.
Yoga is not solely about moving around in different poses (or asanas). Yoga means to “yoke.” This sacred Sanskrit term is used to signify the connections between spirit, mind, and body. Whether we are moving through poses, meditating, chanting, doing breath work, etc., what we are really doing is creating a connection of our physical body to our mind and spirit—creating a sense of equilibrium between all three, which are really one beautifully operating unit. It’s difficult to have anxiety when the mind, body, and spirit are yoked in meditation or savasana (that last pose in most yoga classes where you actually enjoy laying around doing nothing for a few minutes).
When we are in balance, the mind is clear. When we sow thoughts in a clear mind, it is akin to planting seeds in proper conditions. When the mind is not clear, thoughts will still grow in murky conditions. These conditions often generate unwanted outcomes. For example, anxious thoughts will thrive and create even more anxiety in a busy mind. The mind is constantly creating whether we get involved with what is put in or not—analogous to how weeds will grow without involvement.
Yoga helps clear the mind through pointed focus and awareness. Focusing on breathing while mindfully moving from posture to posture in an average American yoga class (which is what comes to mind for most when they picture yoga) helps us to stay in the present moment and pay less attention to the wandering mind. When we are on the mat and feeling the slight shifts and sensations of our bodies, we are connecting our physical body with our inner selves. While sitting in a posture for a short while, if the body is relaxed and the mind wanders, it becomes very clear what is in there as thoughts arise.
A beautiful characteristic of yoga is that the habits we build on the mat will begin to stay with us off the mat.
A remarkable trait about thoughts is that you can change them.
If we don’t like what is coming up, we don’t have to actually keep thinking them. With a little practice of strengthening the mind, we are able to notice thoughts that aren’t aligned with the life we want and modify them.
Ignoring or changing unwanted thoughts and clearing our minds creates the proper soil and weather conditions to grow an aspired thought into reality. This will give us the boost to perform the last and third step of harvesting what we would like. That last step is the physical work.
If we plant cucumber seeds in mid-May and walk away… maybe we will have some cucumbers, but not likely. Chances increase if we ensure the seeds are properly watered, have the right amount of sun, and weeds are kept at bay—at least initially. As the season progresses and cucumber buddings begin to grow and get stronger, we still need to keep an eye on them, but weeds and unexacting sun and water levels are less likely to halt the progression of physical cucumbers.
We have to do the work. Once new habits are built and ingrained into our neural pathways and routines, less focus needs to be put on sustaining the desired result. Keeping 10 lbs off is easy with good habits because we essentially reap what we sow—physically and mentally. If you don’t have a crop harvest right now, it’s only because you didn’t plant seeds and nurture them in the spring.
The laws of nature as we know them work the same in the mind/spirit world.
Yoga helps us to create the harvest (albeit “life”) we want by cultivating a healthy mind-body-spirit connection. The take home—mind your thoughts, as they can and will create the life and harvest you have.
Teleworking really isn’t for everyone. There are so many people that I talk to who tell me they could never do it. If you even think it’s not for you, it’s not. However, if it’s something you have the opportunity to do and are considering, allow me to share why it works for me and how I feel it is beneficial to our workplaces. I now have a full year under my belt of at least one day a week. A few months ago I moved to two days, and most recently, since my office has been under construction, all my work time has been at home.
For starters, I can sleep in much later. When you eliminate the commute time, parking, and walking an additional quarter of a mile to my office, and the time I was spending before work to shower, dress, and primp for the day, I am able to sleep in over an hour longer than I was before. I could stand to sleep in even longer, but I get up to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee, a healthy, non-rushed breakfast, and a short meditation session before I log in for the day. My morning routine is so much more pleasant. I no longer feel tired all the time or dread getting up.
Next, I’m unbelievably comfortable for a variety of reasons. The most striking is in the attire I can wear. When I dress after waking up, I put on comfy workout clothes so I can go for a lunch run later in the day. Also, my desk, chair, and surrounding workspace at home are completely suited to my height, likings, and taste. I can control the temperature of the room. Throughout the day, my cats and dog come to visit, hang around, and sleep on or near me. Their presence reminds me I’m home if I briefly get swept away in workplace politics. Not to mention that looking at them and petting them just seems to soothe my soul.
I move around much more. My chair swirls and doesn’t have weird side bars that give my legs bruises when I curl up in my chair as I type away. I’ll take stretch breaks and do some reinvigorating yoga poses that I wouldn’t dream of doing at the office. When I get up to make cups of warm herbal tea throughout the day, instead of walking across the room to the microwave like I do at work, I walk down a flight of stairs and don’t feel grossed out by the water supply or my surroundings. But my favorite is that I use my lunch break to run. I used to use that same break to walk at work. This required changing my shoes, never being appropriately dressed for the weather, and worrying about getting too warm. Now I can perspire as much as I’d like without worry.
I am so much more focused and productive. I’m not distracted by idle chatter or sharing my own nonsensical stories. There are no crazy alarms going off, constant overhead announcements, or loud trash barrels rolling by as I try to converse over the phone. I don’t see or hear the dings and distractions of other people’s computers, desk phones, and cell phones. I don’t overhear anyone else’s personal or professional conversations. Two job roles back, I worked for 7 years in a corridor that had a one-person, non-gender-specific restroom right down the hall from my desk and around the corner from the transportation department, where the drivers would pop in and out all day to use the facilities. The noise of a flushing toilet and horrendous smell would permeate my senses all day. One of my favorite funny memories from that job was when my then boss, who had an adjacent office to mine, said, “Not only do we have to put up with a bunch of sh!t, but it actually has to smell like it too.”
Along the lines of focus, I pay attention during conference calls like I never had before. Unless I have a part to play in a conference call meeting, at work I find it nearly impossible to pay attention. I’m in front of my computer and always multitasking. Now I use conference call times to walk around the house and do some mindless work. I’ll sometimes sweep, start dinner, grab the mail, or do some other random things. Because I’m physically moving while mentally listening and not trying to do two mental activities at once, I am paying far more attention than I ever had on calls before. I’ll often unmute my phone and pipe in or stop to take notes in my email. That is something I hardly ever did at my desk.
It’s overall healthier too. I am in touch with what is going on outside weather-wise because I have windows. Many spaces I have worked in over the years have had no windows or access to the outside. Sometimes, on a sunny day, I will take my laptop out to the deck and actually feel the sun on my skin. The air quality at home isn’t “iffy.” I’m eating better too. At the office, if I forgot my lunch or decided I am not in the mood to eat what I brought, I would stand on a long cafeteria line and purchase something overpriced and not quite as good for me as the things I have at home.
At the end of the day, I log off and hop into the shower. I’m dried and ready for the evening before I would have even been on I-91 sitting in traffic and feeling extremely agitated.
Monetary savings in food, gas, and clothing. Comfort. Healthier atmosphere and food. More sleep. More time. All good stuff, huh?
Enough about me—this can reap great benefits for employers as well.
For starters, there is likely less unexpected or short-term notice time off. Snow days are just as productive and not to mention safer on both ends. If an employee doesn’t feel well but slugs into the office, other employees get sick, then they get their children sick. Then the children need to stay home, be picked up from school, or not be allowed in daycare, which is more time off for others. An employee without a telework agreement who opts to stay home will cost the organization a full day of work. An employee with one who opts to work sick from home loses the organization very little. Additionally, a doctor appointment in the middle of the day before telework for either my children or myself used to mean a whole morning or afternoon off—usually the afternoon, because trying to find a parking space by 8am where I work is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Speaking of parking and space, allowing employees to telework creates both. Office space in many organizations is at a premium. Even having everyone telework one day a week (staggered) would free up 20% of office and parking space.
There is overall less wasted time throughout the day. Lines at the coffee shop, lines in the cafeteria, waiting for elevators, looking for an open bathroom, being in a queue just to warm up food in the microwave, that third Wednesday of each month where the computers reboot for what seems like infinity… just to name a few. Not to mention a lot of time chit-chatting and socializing. Yes, there are times the remote connection kicks me off, but the overall time savings favor the employer with all the other time wasters that happen in the office.
Safety is always an issue. When I was the strategic planner for VA Connecticut, one couldn’t imagine the number of complaints that would come in every week about air quality, requests for asbestos checks, mold checks, ripped carpets that folks trip over, furniture with sharp edges, etc. When it rains or snows, someone was always bound to fall—meaning a visit to employee health, days off, workers’ comp… all kinds of stuff no employer really wants.
Employees are happier when they aren’t rushed, eating well, sleeping more, saving money, moving around, and feeling like their employer is doing something mutually beneficial for both of them. How can you go wrong?
Well… many things can go wrong. That could be a whole other blog. It may be comforting, however, to know there is some strong, sound advice, policies, and guidelines out there. My organization, for example, has trainings required by both the employee and supervisor before beginning. Additionally, clear expectations are required to be written up, and it comes with the caveat that either party can terminate it at any time. Why not swipe some of these best practices from a person or whole organization that does it well? There are hundreds of articles on the web and in HR journals around the world about why it’s a win-win for all to adopt it, and nearly none on how terrible it has gone.
For now, if you are thinking about using an existing policy or implementing one in the workplace, these are some of the reasons I would humbly advocate for it on both ends. I am sure I’m missing many more benefits! Please don’t hesitate to pipe in or comment if you know of any. Horror stories are welcome too!
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Today I woke up anxious. Physically, I had a slight tightness in my chest. My heart felt a little heavy, but the worst was my breath. I couldn’t help but sigh every few moments—obviously releasing some kind of tension. I felt slightly lost, not sure where my life is going. Not even an hour later, I was laughing and feeling like wherever my life is going, it doesn’t matter—I’ll get there as I need to.
These are the “Gunas”—fluctuations that are normal in the universe. They are everywhere: in the weather, in our moods. It’s a universal law. What goes up must come down. What swings one way will swing the other.
The Gunas are a term I learned in yoga teacher training and were often discussed. They’re now part of my regular vocabulary and thought process. We don’t stay in one mood forever. Nothing stays in its state forever. We are supposed to feel good and bad. It should be expected that both good and bad things will happen. Fighting it is what leads to suffering. In Buddhism, a key tenet is that attachment causes suffering—even attachment to feeling a certain way (like happy), being attached to an outcome you want, or to objects, feelings, desires, etc. The Hindu tradition (yoga’s roots) describes the same concept, just in a different way.
A guna is an attribute of nature, according to Hindu philosophy. In Hinduism, there are three gunas that have always existed in the world, in both living and non-living things:
Here in our Western world, we are not taught to think this way. We tend to feel that if something goes wrong or we don’t feel well (mentally, physically, or spiritually), then something is wrong with us. Imagine if we were taught that both elation and depression are normal and to be expected? Neither will stay. Both are part of the experience of being alive. The more we attach to any experience (good or bad), the more we will “suffer”—suffering meaning anything from disappointment to despair.
I’m signed up for daily emails from Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who has written many books on spirituality. I recently finished Falling Upward, which was amazing. Much of it was about how we need to fall in order to learn and grow—how opposite things are complementary and part of life. I’ll share a quote from a recent meditation:
“If we are going to talk about light, then we must also talk about darkness, because they only have meaning in relation to one another. All things on earth are a mixture of darkness and light, and it is not good to pretend that they are totally separate!”
Understanding the Gunas is one of the many ways I am learning to accept life as it is. When I remember them during low moments, I can almost embrace them as part of the full experience of life. Not always—but more and more often.
They have helped me—and if you’ve read this and are willing to try, perhaps they can help you or someone you love too.
Peace & Namaste
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Today I woke up feeling good. On 7/11/18, 2 months and 2 days ago, I had just one of the worst evenings of my life. The following few days were even more difficult. These last 2 months have been a journey that I realize is life-long and I’m in no rush to finish. I’m enjoying and embracing every step forward and every obstacle that prohibits steps forward, or that even sets me a few back. Obstacles and setbacks are really necessary learning experiences.
Today I’m in gratitude. I might not be in an hour, but for now I am and I’m incredibly grateful.
I could write for hours about how I got here (I promise I won’t). The biggest contributor was my childhood and the mal-adaptive strategies (albeit very normal) I developed early on to deal with life while my brain was forming. One of my newly favorite psychology writers Van Der Kolk calls it Developmental Traumatic Disorder (DTD). This diagnostic explanation is fairly new in the world of psychology. It didn’t quite make it to the DSM-5, which is the latest edition of the manual by which mental health clinicians diagnose and bill for disorders. For now, the closest diagnosis is PTSD, which DTD is a branch of. Particularly for me, for now it’s Delayed Onset, Complex PTSD. It turns out I’m just another statistic, and if someone were watching closely, everything that happened to me could have been predicted.
I’ve been through a gamut of emotions the past few months. Many before 7/11, but even more, and much more intensely since. Crazily, but also not surprisingly, this episode took place just 2 days and exactly 25 years after what was one of the most transformational days of my life at the time when I was 17. I’d written about it before in My Mom. It’s one of my trigger dates, something I don’t think I fully believed in until this summer. I didn’t consciously recognize the significance of how the date triggered me, but my body did. The Body Keeps the Score. It really does.
What I realized most profoundly this summer is that I have PTSD. I really do. Two and a half years ago I had my first panic attack. I was immediately diagnosed with Anxiety and Panic Disorder. Last summer the PTSD diagnosis was added. While I remember telling people about it, somehow I didn’t realize how important it was to my mental recovery to embrace and work on it. In fact, when the true awareness hit me like a ton of bricks just less than a week after 7/11 this year, I was surprised to realize that I’d been sharing and telling people about it prior to then. A few days ago I re-read something I added to my blog page in May, “About Me,” and it was there too! Why wasn’t I working on it?
I wasn’t working on my trauma and PTSD for many reasons. Because it wasn’t urgent and didn’t seem important. Because no one tells you that it’s important. In fact, no one can; it’s something you have to discover on your own when your body is ready. Also because I didn’t have the time or the lifestyle until now. That is why I’m in gratitude this morning. I’m moving in the slow lane and I love it.
From a young age I moved fast. I always had excessive energy. I never understood how anyone could sit at a meeting or in a class and not fidget. I was just always bursting out of my skin. Driving… I had to be in the fast lane. I was constantly assessing for traffic, changing lanes with the flow. Heart always racing. Breath always erratic. I was always, always, always looking for more efficient ways to do things. From driving to folding laundry to cleaning… to redesigning whole work groups and even departments at my job. I was good at it. It was a great outlet for my energy. I was efficient and I helped others to be as well. A good use of my talents. Or so I thought.
Now I’m living in the slow lane. I still have the habit of moving fast, but I catch myself at least 80% or so of the time when I realize that for no good reason my heart is in a lurch or my breath isn’t steady. I stop it and slow down. I manage my breath. I smell the roses. I ground myself in the present and it’s SO much better. I think about that quote about how nothing or everything is a miracle, and see things as beautiful. Even ugly things. I wish we could teach our children this from a young age. Instead we are programmed to “succeed,” to do more and faster, to have it all, to do it all. We are programmed to think we are a failure if we don’t meet this criteria. On paper, by this methodology, I was a huge success.
Take two driven people like my husband and myself, put them together, and what do you have? It’s debatable. 7 years ago I would have thought a match made in heaven. In fact, at our wedding we incorporated the Japanese term of kaizen (continuous improvement) into our vows. Ugh… how I cringe now.
I do believe in continuous improvement, but not in the way it was taught to me (faster, better, do more, etc.). I believe in the slow movement. That less is more. That slowing down and even stillness is where the magic of life lies. Take a look at the pets in our lives. They are content with doing less, watching the world outside the window for hours just as it is. Accepting us for who we are. Not caring about how we are dressed or what fancy letters come after our name. They are, in a sense, more human from a place of connection than we are. I have four pets. I didn’t even have time to pet them before. I would shoo them away when they came to climb on me when I collapsed on the couch after 16 hours of non-stop movement. We had to have our dog in daycare just to get exercise and go out because no one was home long enough to play with him or take him out. Picking him up and dropping him off was another burdened activity on the checklist. Why have pets, kids, a house (2 in our case), a garden, etc., when there was no time to put any love or life into any of it? It’s been a slow realization for me that none of this makes sense. That I was living by a clock and not a compass. It took even longer to do anything meaningful about it. I’m still on that journey and in no rush to any finish line. The unfolding is a beautiful experience that I’m embracing wildly.
I wrote a few paragraphs back that I could write for hours about how I got here. Everyone has their own journey, their own stories, their own level of awareness, and their own (hopefully) point in their life—more often than not in the second half of it—in which they proverbially “wake up.”
My own story started on March 1, 2012. At work I enrolled in a Franklin Covey industry-based class for The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It was a 2-day seminar that set the path of a new life for me. At the time I was recently remarried and my husband and I were just finishing up the renovations we worked on non-stop for 2 months in our new home. I felt SO alive during those renovations. I loved working on the house. We often stayed up until 1 or 2am in the morning on work nights and didn’t feel the least bit exhausted in the morning.
Once the renovations were finishing up, I started to feel trapped, bored, and useless—something I wasn’t accustomed to feeling. Since my husband and I moved in together with our kids the year before, I felt like I was mentally unraveling. The renovations were a pleasant distraction. I began going to a Bible study at the hospital where I work, which one of my vanpool mates hosted. I hung onto many of the teachings and words, learning new language to explain what I was feeling. The Covey class used similar language but explained it in a different way that opened me up in a special fashion. Three things I really connected with were the concept of a paradigm that we see the world through, that I make my own independent choices constantly, and that to feel in line with who you are, we should be living by a compass and not a clock. Wow. This was mind-blowing and life-changing for me.
Shortly after, I explored the Bible much more. Then I ran into a Bishop Spong book quite by accident (I honestly cannot remember which one). I was never religious, but grew up Catholic and felt like it was a sin to question anything that didn’t make sense. As soon as my mind took me to those questioning places, guilt kicked in and I pushed it away. The John Shelby Spong book provided the freedom to question what made no sense and shift the focus to something that did in a more mystical, metaphysical way where it all made sense. From there I found podcasts on the Centers for Spiritual Living to help time pass while having to drive to Bedford, MA quite often for work—2½ hours each direction. Those podcasts prompted me to read the ghastly large book by Ernest Holmes called The Science of Mind. The world was opening and unfolding in ways I could have never dreamed. From there, for some unknown reason, I started taking yoga classes, which spoke the same type of language. Then I would listen to Alan Watts during my lunch walks and long commutes. All different words, but the same beautiful, timeless messages that make sense.
Years later, in January 2016, I loved yoga and this way of thinking so much that I started yoga teacher training. My regular life with work, the kids, pets, blended family, commute, and constant rush was becoming unsustainable. Why was I adding a full weekend a month commitment to this training? I don’t know, but I just felt compelled.
For some reason I thought in yoga teacher training I would learn more about the poses, teaching, and the actual class. Instead, like the Franklin Covey class years before, it became a personal journey. I quickly decided that it was a necessity to meditate regularly. Once I started quieting my mind and relaxing regularly, I realized that is how a body should feel, and how I lived for the previous 40 years was anything but calm. It started to become unbearable to not feel calm. Combine that with what I now realize is a few PTSD triggers from work at the time, it’s absolutely no surprise that I had my first panic attack exactly when I did, and they escalated from there—completely out of control. My body was releasing 40 years’ worth of emotion that was bubbling just under the surface. The same energy that kept me moving, grooving, and successful was the same energy that was keeping me stressed and mentally unaware that I was damaging myself by not dealing with the trauma that has plagued my mind, body, and spirit.
The past two and a half years since have been transformational. A lot of bad and negative things arose, but more positive learning experiences than anything bad. You have to go through it to move through it. It sounds simple, but it’s much harder than it sounds. It wasn’t until now that I’ve given myself the time and opportunity to heal. But you have to make the time. Your life has to allow it. You have to slow down.
This past summer was rough. I spent hours upon hours writing and allowing myself to remember and experience the anguish of old memories. Many were the same memories that came up during what I now know as PTSD episodes, but I’d felt too ashamed, embarrassed, or dramatic to explore. In writing, crying, thinking, gardening, exercising, waking up in the middle of the night, reading, etc., I started to explore my triggers and where they came from. It made sense. I learned more about how the brain is wired and why I seemed to lose control at times. I logged and shared trigger dates with my family. I allowed myself to feel all that I’ve always pushed away and thought I moved past years ago. It was always there waiting for me to deal with it. I just didn’t slow down enough to hear it.
Today I feel good. Over coffee this morning I saw my husband petting one of the cats who was purring where he shouldn’t be (on a counter). When my husband moved his hand away to finish getting ready for work, our cat Gilmore bipped him on the hand—asking for more petting, which Daren provided. We are in a place where we have time to pet our cats. I am thankful I am in a job where if I woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t sleep for hours, the pressure of getting dressed and driving to the office with a smile is not there because I can telework and I’m part-time. I’m thankful for the mental health breakdown this summer. I spent so much time on the days I wasn’t working living like my pets. I napped in the middle of the day if I needed to. I only ate when I was hungry. If I felt like the sun was calling me, I read and wrote outside. If I felt the urge to move, I went for a walk, run, or bike ride. Listening to my body helped me to attune to what it’s telling me in other ways too. Our bodies are a walking, living, physical communication device. It’s a compass of that path we should be on.
This summer I also listened to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People CDs that I was provided with from that class back in March of 2012. Listening to the late Stephen Covey’s voice felt like listening to an old friend with sound, sage, timeless advice. I also spent quite a bit of time doing those old exercises again. I created a mission statement, thought about my values and principles, my “rocks,” how I communicate with people, how I think, and how I live. I thought about the life that I want to program. My own talents. Not the talents the world has barked at me—like designing things bigger, better, and faster—but what I wanted to be when I was a kid with no restrictions and what that meant. The imprint I want to leave on the world.
These aren’t overnight answers. If I thought for a New York second that I know them right now, I’d be fooling myself. I’ll be working on them for the rest of my life. I’m trying diligently to listen to the compass. If we quiet ourselves enough, and ask our inner selves for advice, the most profound wisdom is all there, right within us. Our bodies know what we need. They keep the score.
My dog Koji who teaches me all sorts of invaluable lessons without saying a word
Bored at home after carpal tunnel surgery of my right hand this past Monday (9/10), I decided to try to open my right brain by painting with my left hand
My left handed drawing depicting what is supposed to be a sunset
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